Food Security

Food security is very important for a developed nation. It literally means everyone in the country is having access to food. Food security has three dimensions availability, accessibility and affordability. It is very important for every citizen of the country to have availability to food. It means that country should produce food grains which sufficient to stomach of the people. India has an agrarian economy. Majority of the population involves directly or indirectly in agriculture. 80% of Indian population works in agriculture sector but it contributes only 15 % of GDP while 75 % of contribution comes from service sector. Right now, India is major producer of wheat and rice. This was not the case in 1940’s and 1970’s. During British era,country economy has suffered a lot. In 1940’s in Bengal, there was famine in which around 30 lakhs people died due to starvation. At that time, production of rice was reasonable in the country but due to lack of transport facilities and negligence from British side leads to death of so many people. In 1970’s, when Lal Bahadur Shastri was the prime minister, India was struggling with its food sufficiency. Lal Bahadur Shastri emphasised on adopting new way of agricultural practices. There was a paradigm shift in policies from govt part which result in green revolution. After Green Revolution, farmers were using High yielding seeds, modern fertilizers and insecticides which increase the yield the wheat and rice. After that many revolution took place in India, one of revolution took place tin Anand district of Gujarat called White Revolution which made India self-sufficient in milk production.

But merely, producing food grains is not important for country storing them is equally important. Generally, FCI buy food grains from farmer on its least support price which is decided by govt of India before farmers sow their crop. These food grains are then stored in food grannies  for any emergency situation like famine etc. Govt also has distribution system in place for those who cannot able to buy food grains ie living below poverty line. Govtalso give them food grains on subsidies prices called issue price. This distribution took place on ration shop present in every part of country. Ration cards are issues for poor people so they can afford food grains at very low price. AAY (antyodaya scheme) a scheme for poorest of the poor provide wheat (3 rupee per KG) and rice (2 rupee per KG). Annapurna Scheme provides subsidies food grains to elder people. But still we can see many place people are dying of starvation and hunger. Reason for hunger and starvation is problem associated with public distribution system like storage problem of food grain, hoarding of food grains and black marketing.